How 4K Resolution Will Bring Movie-Theater Quality Into the Living Room

By Al Griffin Posted 06.01.2012 at 10:14 am 11 Comments

The Bigger Picture Quick stats: A DVD has about 345,600 pixels per frame. Blu-ray? 2.1 million. 4K? A whopping 8.8 million. Alison Seiffer

Since the first high-definition televisions came out in 1998, consumers have heard the same tired sales pitch: “It’s like having a movie theater in your living room!” Actually, no. An HD image does have nearly the same resolution as one projected in a theater. But when viewed on a large screen in a tight living room, the image's quality degrades markedly. 4K, a resolution standard just beginning to reach consumer markets, promises to make possible the dream of any serious film fan—vast, perfectly crisp movies at home.

A 4K image has at least four pixels for every one in an HD image, allowing for video that’s 4,096 pixels wide versus only 1,920 pixels wide in HD. With more and smaller pixels, images will retain their quality both at large screen sizes and at close distances. For example, in the average living room, viewers sit as close as six feet from the screen. At that distance, a 100-inch 4K image will appear sharp and vibrant. At the same distance, a 100-inch HD image will appear grainy and pixelated.

The transition to 4K has already begun. In 2008, IFC Films debuted the first widely released full-length 4K film, Che, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Since then, Sony Pictures has released a handful of 4K movies, including The Green Hornet and Moneyball, and Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Paramount have also begun transitioning to dedicated 4K shooting. Meanwhile, the first consumer-grade 4K displays are just starting to come out. Sony and JVC introduced the first 4K home-theater projectors last September. LG says it will launch a 4K flat-panel LCD by next year, and Toshiba is likely to follow suit.

Just as with the transition to HD, mass adoption of 4K will be slow. Film companies must find easy and affordable ways to distribute it. In the short term, that will mean developing new file-compression standards. Next January, the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding will finalize a standard known as High Efficiency Video Coding. HEVC will compress files twice as efficiently as the current standard, MPEG-4 AVC, and will allow studios to fit a full-length 4K feature film onto existing media formats, such as Blu-ray discs.

Over the longer term, Internet service providers will need to improve their infrastructure to support 4K streaming. Today, broadband is fast and reliable enough—the average speed in the U.S. is now more than six megabits per second, and fiber connections can be even faster—for Netflix to deliver full-HD movies. Analysts estimate that 4K streaming will demand more than three times current speeds, at least 20 megabits per second on average. But that level of service is coming. South Korea already has a working one-gigabit-per-second fiber-optic network, and Google is currently testing a similar network in Kansas City. When that happens, viewers will not only have brilliant theater-quality screens; they'll have an entire, instant 4K library to go with them.

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11 Comments

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Robot

06/01/12 at 10:42 am

Once we get our electronic brain interface connected with the internet, the true artifical reality can begin. Hello Matrix!

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killerT

06/01/12 at 12:31 pm

I'll get excited when I see this tech in a 3D monitor, Starting at 30 inches.
It would still be useless without something to show on it though.

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dancmos

06/01/12 at 9:18 pm

The real driver behind the move to 4K (and soon 6K) is RED Digital Cinema. Film has been at about 4K for a long time, but it took RED to develop an affordable and workable method for high res digital image capture. Now they are introducing a relatively affordable Laser Projector that is scalable from 15' to full theater size formats. They are also getting to roll out the Dragon 6K sensor, and the REDRAY player. The challenge will be distribution, but I think Jim Jannard has something in the works.

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JediMindset

06/02/12 at 12:57 am

the human eye cant even distinguish between 4,096 pixels and 1,920 lol. stop it with "2d" screens!!! 3D and Virtual Reality is a step in the right direction.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

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UNKNOWN9122

06/02/12 at 10:58 am

@JediMindset

Until they get 3D right, like 3D without glasses, and a less nauseous effect from watching 3D, i might be interested. Also, cable providers lack the support for 3D, and making people switch from composite to HDMI could be expensive for the company. So if the cable provider provides the HDMI cable, then it might be a good bet. But as of now, 2D is king.

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adaptation

06/02/12 at 11:13 pm

Sony's 4k 'home' projector is $20,000.

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Scythelord

06/03/12 at 12:11 pm

@Jedimindset

The human eye can very much tell the difference between 1920 and 4096. Especially when dealing with computer generated 3D graphics. I use 1920x1080 daily and without serious anti aliasing, I still see individual pixels on my 48" display that is 7 feet away. 4096x2304 will reduce the size of individual pixels to less than half of a 1920x1080 image, allowing closer displays with increased quality for more immersion. Much better than staring at a smallish window at longer distance.

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QuietStormX

06/04/12 at 3:04 am

Hmmmm.... Can't wait till I get my System for the Home I want to build with a screening room and Audio to go with it. 4K 3D sounds nice. That sony 4K Projector (VPL-VW100ES)for about($25K). It's for custom installs.

SONY INTRODUCES THE WORLD’S FIRST 4K PROJECTOR DESIGNED FOR HIGH-END HOME THEATER INSTALLATIONS

New front projector delivers a variety of entertainment at more than 4-times the resolution of HDTV

INDIANAPOLIS (CEDIA Booth #1803), Sept. 8, 2011 – Sony Electronics today introduced its VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theater projector, once again demonstrating its leadership by delivering a first of its kind high-resolution home entertainment experience. The new ES (Elevated Standard) model is the world’s first home theater front projector that has been specifically designed to meet the needs of custom installers and is capable of displaying stunning 4K images that provide entertainment enthusiasts with a more immersive, engaging visual experience with over four times the resolution of HDTV.

“Sony continues to push the boundaries of high resolution video from the lens to the living room,” said Mike Abary, senior vice president of Sony Electronics’ Home Division. “In similar fashion to our industry leading 4K Digital Cinema projectors, our new VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theater projector has been created to not just meet but exceed the needs of the most discerning and demanding home entertainment enthusiasts. It will allow them to become totally involved in the viewing experience and much closer to the action on the biggest home theater screens, with images that deliver considerably more detail and fewer artifacts.”

With 2,000 ANSI-lumens of brightness, the VPL-VW1000ES delivers nearly twice the output of previous Sony home theater projectors, making it suitable for screen sizes up to 200 inches diagonally. The VW1000ES also employs an entirely new SXRD 4K panel, which produces outstanding deep blacks; when combined with Sony's Iris3 technology, the projector can achieve an incredible 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast.

In addition to supporting 4K native resolution, the VW1000ES projector also features an exclusive Super Resolution 4K “upscaler” that dramatically enhances 2D and 3D 1080P content, allowing the viewers to get the most from their existing Blu-ray Disc™ libraries at home. For greater versatility, it has a built-in transmitter, it has picture position memory which memorizes the position of the zoom lens, and it supports 2D and 3D anamorphic films.

The VW1000ES offers a variety of installations options, including dual triggers, a 2.1 motorized zoom, expanded throw distances, an RS232 interface, control over IP and compatibility with the leading home automation systems.

The VPL-VW1000ES is just the latest in a complete series of Sony ES projectors that are available exclusively to custom installers. Last year at CEDIA Sony released its first 3D home projector, the VPL-VW90ES, and in June of this year, the VPL-HW30ES projector joined the line as a lower-cost, high-performance 3D model. Most recently, the VPL-VW95ES was announced at IFA as a mid-level 3D home projector option.

Pricing and Availability

Sony’s new VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theater front projector will begin shipping in December through Sony’s network of A/V specialists and customer installers for under $25,000. “With its truly advanced resolution, the new VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theater projector delivers on the promise of the future of home entertainment – today,” concluded Abary. "It proudly showcases Sony’s commitment to innovation, quality and design.”

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democedes

06/04/12 at 12:12 pm

If you are sitting too close to your screen at home you can:

A. Scoot back.
B. Buy $50k worth of cutting edge equipment and a neck brace.

If you sit in the front row of a movie theater, you are going to have similar issues. So, instead of seeing the pixels, you will see the film grain. Awesome!

Until they start filming movies in cameras with optics that can capture images that are crisp in 4K, this is nothing but a marketing ploy.

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JediMindset

06/04/12 at 6:16 pm

@Scythelord,

im talking about a screen the same size(32 inches). when comparing 1920 and 4096 pixels they are not that different apart. but when viewing on a larger screen(50 in plus) of course there is an advantage with more pixels. that the main reason why HD became so popular....people wanted bigger screens. so basically, for more pixels use bigger screens and regular sized screen, normal amount of pixels.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest